Lucky? Depends on your point of view...

Now here’s a thing. I’m the unluckiest person I know. OK, I’m not as unlucky as the 7 Japanese citizens who die each year because they fail to synchronise their bowing, or indeed, the old lady who had her cat rescued from a tree by the fire brigade only to watch them run it over with the fire tender when they left. But apart from them I am the unluckiest person I know.

But the British view bad luck differently to anyone else (see my comments on British DNA in a previous Blog entry). I’ll give you an example. 20 years ago I crashed my car into a tree. I nearly lost my right eye; I broke my ankle, elbow, knuckle, and two ribs. Oh, and I developed a nasty cough. The doctor told me I would never cartwheel again and he was right. It took the recovery team 4 hours to lever my car off the tree. It was so mangled they posted it back to me.

A policeman came to check on me in hospital the next morning.

            ‘My, my, you’re a very lucky fellow,’ was the first thing he said.

Lucky? If I’d been lucky, I wouldn’t be laying in bed waiting for an MRSA bug to kill me would I?

The first friend to see me after I was discharged, standing on crutches, stitches over my eye; unable to pee unless I sat down, looked me up and down.

            ‘F**k me, you’ve had a result.’

Result? A result is winning the lottery.

Thereafter, every friend, family member, complete stranger in the street, all patted me on my good arm and told me how lucky I was. Meanwhile any rational person would point out the obvious:

Not hitting the tree is lucky.

So please believe me when I say I am unlucky. Which makes what happened yesterday all the more unusual. My passport came back with all the visas I need for the UK to Beijing leg of my trip. The details were correct; the dates corresponded with my journey and all a week earlier than expected. Naturally the visa agent hadn’t put enough postage on the special delivery envelope, but hey, I still consider this a result. Lucky even.

But wait, it gets better. During the course of the day 2 writing commissions arrived in my in box. This was definitely a result.

While I’m on a roll I thought I’d tackle the Vietnamese visa section next – in person. Yes, they let you apply in person for your visa, so I’ll be popping up on the train next week. And because I have to be there early, I’ll be catching my old commuter train. My old adversary and me will be locking horns at 06.58 on Tuesday. Farnborough station is where the battle starts.

I’m not afraid, I’ll show it respect, but I’m not going to bow – too dangerous…